Aaron Bruski

Basketball Daily Dose

Daily Dose: Pau-er Outage

Evan Turner’s recent run of productive games has pushed him into the top-90 producers, and last night he posted 22 points, four rebounds, four assists, and an 8-of-12 mark from the field (including two threes). I’m still officially skeptical that he can hit 43.5 percent of his threes all year, as his jumper was as broken as anybody’s for the last two years. Jason Richardson had a slow night hitting 2-of-8 shots for six points, but he managed eight rebounds and three steals to salvage the night. As long as he’s healthy he’s going to be in my lineups until further notice.

Thaddeus Young kept his foot on the gas with 20 points and seven boards, as did Jrue Holiday with 18 points, seven assists, three steals, and a block. Holiday had six turnovers, but he’ll eventually get that under control. Dorell Wright still isn’t making too much noise, in particular on offense where he had two points on 1-of-5 shooting, but the four rebounds, four assists, and one block in just 18 minutes will probably please Doug Collins. Spencer Hawes (six points, 13 minutes) is supposedly dealing with knee issues, but it feels like that’s just a nice way of saying he’s in Collins’ doghouse.

Tricky Dick

Rick Carlisle has been on a bit of a rampage lately, changing lineups and rotations frequently and last night he demoted Darren Collison so Dominique Jones (18 minutes) could start at point guard. This was clearly a motivational tactic and it worked, as Collison only had a few major mistakes to go with 12 points, three boards, six assists, and five steals. His defense has been a huge sore spot for Carlisle, which probably comes into focus when Collison isn’t performing efficiently on offense. Regardless, this would appear to be a major save by Collison but owners should be on red alert. I haven’t been nearly as high on Collison’s overall value preposition as others around here, but if you share my vision and want to float a low-ball offer this might be a good time while the dust is still in the air.

O.J. Mayo tweaked his ankle at the end of the game and that could mean he’s due for some rest, which needless to say is a bummer for a guy that has been a common thread for winning fantasy squads. Mayo had 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting with five rebounds and seven assists despite playing on the bad wheel. I’ve said it before, but I think he’s the last guy to see his touches decreased when Dirk Nowitzki returns in a few weeks. Jae Crowder was also given a surprise start, but I think it’s time we all consider him to be the two-point, four-rebound, two-assist, one-steal guy he was last night in 24 minutes. He’ll usually hit a three or two on a given night, but he’s simply a glue guy for the Mavs at this point and nothing more.

Vince Carter scored 15 points with three treys and a full stat line, and will continue to be a guy owners can turn to while he’s being relied upon so heavily by the Mavs. Elton Brand turned back the clock against his old team with 17 points, eight rebounds, one steal, and one block in 19 minutes off the bench, and that same ‘old team’ angle is enough to make me want to see it again before flinching. Shawn Marion appears to be healthy, scoring 17 points with eight rebounds, and owners can go back to using him as they normally would.

Lofty Territory

The Cavs could really use Kyrie Irving, as they are simply lost on most possessions and it’s not really an indictment of any one player as much as it is a total lack of talent. Dion Waiters dealt with a banged up left (non-shooting) hand and will have an MRI on Wednesday, but he played through it and finished with 16 points on 7-of-20 shooting, three rebounds, seven assists, two steals, and one block. He’s the only thing going for the Cavs on many possessions, but because he is already prone to forcing up shots and now he needs to – his field goal percentage is going to keep this run from being truly magnificent.

Jeremy Pargo hit just 3-of-12 shots last night, but finished with a respectable eight points, four boards, five assists, one steal, and one lone 3-point shot. Something in this ballpark should have been the expectation for owners going into this arrangement, with anything else being icing on the cake. Anderson Varejao continues to do his best Kevin Love impression without the 3-point shooting, scoring 20 points on 10-of-15 shooting with 18 rebounds, three assists, one steal, and one block. You could say his top 10-15 value is unsustainable simply because he’s operating in lofty territory, but by the current makeup of the Cavs’ roster and his ability I don’t see any falloff.

Tristan Thompson (five points, six boards, no steals or blocks) continues to underwhelm, and I don’t really see the upside for him at this point. If he was going to do things like steal, block, or make shots I think we’d have seen some signs of it by now. Also, it looks like some of my hope for Tyler Zeller (two points, two boards, 20 minutes) may have been premature, as he looked lost last night and got abused by Jermaine O’Neal. Maybe it’s a function of playing next to the Tasmanian Devil in Varejao, but he is taking an extreme back seat right now. Daniel Gibson was a late scratch due to his elbow injury, and that’s going to make him hard to trust until he can stay on the court for a few games. His return should help things in a macro sense for the Cavs.

Suns

The Suns beat up on a beat-up Cavs team last night, but one gets the feeling that things are out of control for Alvin Gentry. Even Goran Dragic has been struggling to play truly heavy minutes at just 33 per game, while his teammates are seeing much less than that lately. This doesn’t really make sense for a team that struggles with depth, and along with Marcin Gortat’s comments to a Polish media outlet it’s fair to wonder what’s going on behind closed doors.

For Gortat, his minutes are taking a hit due to Jermaine O’Neal’s solid play, and again it’s curious because Gentry could simply play both of them together for at least a little bit and hold a solid frontcourt advantage. Gortat scored six points on 3-of-7 shooting with three rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in 24 minutes, and based on his massive early season numbers it’s an easy call to say owners should hang tight (and that Gentry is crazy for making this an either-or proposition).

O’Neal’s knees look rejuvenated and he was the go-to guy on offense for much of the time he was on the court, even if his nine points on 4-of-9 shooting with six rebounds and two blocks in 21 minutes don’t scream ‘feed me, Seymour.’ Yes, the Suns training staff is amazing and maybe O’Neal had super secret Kobe knee fusion, but one has to think his run and Gortat’s corresponding slide are a short-term thing.

The rest of the Suns’ box was pretty predictable, with Dragic putting up a fairly normal 19 points with five boards, seven assists, two steals, one block, and three treys, Michael Beasley scoring an empty 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting with four rebounds, one steal, and one three, Markieff Morris slowing down with four points, two boards, two steals, and one block in 24 minutes, Luis Scola scoring 14 points with four boards in 24 minutes, Shannon Brown putting up nine points with a relatively full line by his standards, and Jared Dudley scoring 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting with four rebounds and one triple in 21 minutes. Each of these guys except for Dudley and Brown make a case to be owned in most 12-team formats, and we’ve discussed Dudley’s slow starts a whole bunch, but none of them outside of Dragic and Gortat are going to be reliable until Gentry stops with the ‘everybody plays’ rotation.

Blaze of Gory

The Kings are so bad. I cover them more or less like a beat writer as I work the relocation story for ProBasketballTalk.com and it’s painful to watch the owners pull the whole Major League thing because they’re broke and a mess. It manifests itself on the court as the general manager is empowered to make mind-numbing decisions with a coach that wouldn’t get away with what he is doing at any other franchise. This in turn impacts fantasy owners, who have no clue what they’re going to get out of their players on any given night.

Currently, the Kings are opting to go back to the playbook that has kept them in the basement by giving Tyreke Evans the keys at all costs. Evans, for his part, has been hot for the last three games and had another solid outing stat-wise with 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting with seven rebounds, six assists, two steals, and two blocks. This sounds great, but it comes at the expense of any sort of offensive concept, so with any good that we see there are two parts bad as Evans charges into three defenders seemingly on every other play. And when he’s not doing that, he’s either not seeing or refusing to pass to wide open teammates (even when he posts high assist totals). The net result is that the machinery simply doesn’t work. Aaron Brooks (2-of-7 FGs, seven points, four assists), DeMarcus Cousins (9-of-22 FGs, 20 points), Marcus Thornton (5-of-13 FGs, 12 points), John Salmons (2-of-5 FGs, five points, 30 minutes) and Jason Thompson (3-of-8 FGs, seven points, five boards, three blocks) are all last night’s examples of this.

Right now the shots are falling for Evans, and the Kings managed to get a win over the weekend against a Jazz team being derided by its beat writers for its lackadaisical play. That win, and a two-game sample size of good field goal shooting from the guards was enough for the Sac media and team to hail the new starting lineup as the greatest thing since Vlade Divac’s restaurant opened in Old Sac.

This means owners shouldn’t get excited over Isaiah Thomas’ relatively big night coming off the bench. Thomas scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting with three rebounds, three assists, and two steals in what could be best characterized as a messy sparkplug-like effort. The Kings were wallowing in their own misery for most of the third quarter with the game slipping away, and Thomas quickly asserted himself and made a few big plays throughout the second half. He’s still playing like a guy looking over his shoulder, trying to do too much when he’s on the floor because – shocker – nobody knows what the hell is going on with the Kings offense and he’s losing playing time left and right. On that note, Keith Smart has made several comments about sticking with the current lineup.

The whole situation might have been summed up best last night in a moment of hilarity for the Sac media after the game. Thomas was asked if he thought Jimmer Fredette should get more playing time.

“That’s coach’s decision. I think I should play more.” Even when it’s about Thomas, it’s about somebody else in Sacramento. One of the team’s best players from last season and their only chance at a reasonably orchestrated offense fields questions about why the other mismatched parts should be going down in a blaze of gory.

Mount Kevin Saint Love

The Wolves predictably did damage against the Kings’ weak defense, though like most teams they played down to the Kings’ level with 17 turnovers of mostly the unforced variety. Still, Luke Ridnour torched Aaron Brooks for most of the night with 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting, five assists, one steal, and one block, Kevin Love erupted with 23 points, 24 boards, two threes, two steals, and one block, Andrei Kirilenko scored 14 points with six rebounds, five assists, and three blocks, and Nikola Pekovic traded blows with DeMarcus Cousins to the tune of 16 points, eight boards, four assists, and a block.

I still think Kirilenko will be a solid fantasy player this season, but I was on the sell-high boat for the past two weeks. He’s simply not going to have the eye-popping stats he had with Love out, and if owners can use this game to sell AK’s early season production by all means do it. Kirilenko complained about back issues after the game, too, so he might not have been comfortable carrying the load that he did.

It’s possible that Pekovic plays better with Love in the lineup stretching defenses, but I need to see him do it against an opponent with a somewhat imposing interior. Right now Sacramento, Golden State, and Portland don’t qualify. Alexey Shved hit two huge threes but managed just eight points, two assists, and two steals in his 27 minutes. He and J.J. Barea (1-of-5 FGs, two points, four boards, six assists) are going to struggle to produce for standard league owners and Ricky Rubio’s return is right around the corner. I still like Shved as a long-term stash with all those injury risks, but it’s going to be hard for standard league owners to pull the trigger until at least one of the aforementioned gets hurt.

I’m on assignment for ProBasketballTalk right now so today’s Dose won’t explore the Wednesday night games as I usually do, or the other tidbits of information from around the league. To get a recap of all of the news that wasn’t specific to last night’s games check our player news page, which will also have all the plenty of info pertaining to tonight’s games. Good luck tonight.

Also, to follow me on Twitter for news and info as it happens, click here.

Tears in Heaven

The Pacers cruised into Staples Center last night and won an ugly game in which both teams combined to shoot about 35 percent from the field and just under 60 percent from the foul line. George Hill was the hero late, taking a high pick-and-roll past an overmatched Pau Gasol with a perfectly placed tear-drop over the outstretched arms of a late-arriving Dwight Howard in the final seconds. There weren’t any fantasy revelations on the Pacers’ side of the box, as Hill (19 points, five rebounds, five assists) and David West (16 points, 10 boards, eight assists) continued to dominate production for the Pacers. The good news for Hill’s owners is that he got a big win and the Pacers don’t appear to be overly concerned about the lack of direction in their offense. And frankly, it’s probably because they don’t have any other options. D.J. Augustin (12 minutes) is not trusted by the coaching staff and the team’s primary weapons offensively (Hill and Roy Hibbert) are not guys that are going to get others involved, with West’s assists tonight notwithstanding.

This means that guys like Paul George (5-of-13 FGs, 12 points, nine boards, two steals) and to a lesser degree Lance Stephenson (four points, 2-of-8 FGs) and Gerald Green (three points, 1-of-8 FGs) are going to be on their own. And in the case of the latter two fellows, that’s simply not going to be good enough for fantasy owners. Green is going to be high on my list of mistakes this season, though Doc and I were still marveling throughout tonight’s game how he and his teammates have not been able to get him on track.

Pauer Outage

The Lakers are their own mess right now, with Dwight Howard writing the name of Bible verses from the book of Phil on his shoes and Kobe Bryant playing like Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears. Kobe made half of the Lakers’ field goals last night on a 12-of-28 shooting binge, triple-doubling with 40 points, 10 boards, and 10 turnovers in the loss.

Pau Gasol is being treated like a pariah in these parts, and I have to admit I might be late to the party here. Gasol hit just 2-of-9 shots for 10 points with nine boards, three assists, and one block and generally looked like garbage last night. Watching the approach that Mike D’Antoni has taken with him it initially looked motivational to me, as in Mike D trying to get the big fella to run and gun and fit his system. Then the stories about knee tendinitis and conditioning came, followed by the trade rumors, and as we’ve seen in the past Gasol has started to shrink amidst the chaos. It can’t be understated how consistent Gasol has been over the past few years, and my initial reaction was to remain skeptical that his sky was falling at least for a week or two. But the sharks are circling in Los Angeles and if D’Antoni wants to play small ball things could get ugly quick. I’m going to remain patient, but I’m not thrilled to be the only one on that rapidly sinking boat.

Metta World Peace hit just 1-of-8 shots for four points and even if he didn’t have the 12 rebounds, four assists, and steal I wouldn’t be worried at all. Antawn Jamison (1-of-7 FGs, three points) has shown very little to suggest he can be a threat and MWP should be locked into D’Antoni’s plans going forward. Dwight Howard scored 17 points with eight boards, a steal, and four blocks to go with a typical 3-of-12 mark from the foul line in the loss. I am looking forward to Steve Nash’s return, whenever that may be, as Nash is still sidelined for that proverbial ‘week.’ It will mark the last transformation of the Lakers’ offense, at least until D’Antoni gets fired during the Lakers’ next meltdown. I’m kidding, I think.

Beard Me

I really hope you guys were able to procure James Harden from a panicky owner last week, as he is posting top-12 value in 9-cat leagues despite 4.1 turnovers per game and he is the No. 4 fantasy player in 8-cat formats. He had 24 points on 9-of-19 shooting with six boards, 12 assists, three steals, one block, and four triples in 44 minutes. He’s scary good. Jeremy Lin is back on track after the various benchings and posted 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting with four rebounds, 10 assists, three steals, and one trey in 38 minutes. I think he’ll go through some of those ups and downs all year but he’ll remain a solid fantasy PG play. Omer Asik went for 13 and 18 with 6-of-9 makes from the field and 1-of-2 makes from the line. If you’re not punting in his deficient areas right now, he’s still only a late round value at best but I like him to continue cleaning things up even if it’s just incrementally.

The Chandler Parsons show continues to roll along with no signs of stopping, as he scored 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting with seven rebounds, four assists, one steal, and two triples. He has cleaned up his shooting and that’s the biggest driver behind his early round value aside from his 10 mpg increase over last season. I wouldn’t bank on a regression in his shooting to last year’s numbers, but it can’t be ruled out either. Patrick Patterson has been hot lately and pushed his stock up into must-own territory for all but the shallowest formats. He scored 22 points on 7-of-14 shooting with two threes to go with five rebounds and a steal. I have a feeling he’ll be a guy that goes on and off the waiver wire this season, but that won’t happen if he can continue to take steps forward every night.

And One Thing Leads to Another

Kyle Lowry was surprisingly passive last night against his old team, which spurred old criticisms of the lax defense that put him in Kevin McHale’s doghouse at the end of last year. Lowry clearly wasn’t at 100 percent, though, and Toronto beat writers aren’t quite ready to give him the dog label on defense yet, either. He scored just seven points on 3-of-10 shooting with eight rebounds, five assists, and a steal, which is all one needs to know about his value if this is going to be a ‘bad night.’ Jose Calderon picked up some extra responsibilities as a result, finishing with 12 points and seven assists. Owners shouldn’t arbitrarily dump him just yet, as the Raptors are not deep and still rely on his playmaking ability and love showcasing him for trade.

Terrence Ross had his best game of the year with 19 points on 9-of-17 shooting, five rebounds, and one assist in a season-high 36 minutes. The roster is situated beautifully for him with a hole at small forward and nobody knocking down the door to take the spot. Dwane Casey has handled the rookie with kid gloves, and may do so going forward, but Ross is a viable stash with the hopes that one thing leads to another for him after last night.

Ed Davis scored 12 points with four boards, one steal, and one block in his 21 minutes off the bench, but as we mostly expected he’s still sitting on a low-minute role. Jonas Valanciunas played 32 minutes and scored 12 points on 5-of-10 shooting with five rebounds, two assists, and one block. He should be owned in most formats as Toronto loves him and it’s only a matter of time before we don’t question his nightly workload, if we’re not already there. Andrea Bargnani (21 points, four rebounds, three treys) is drawing the ire of beat writers and rightfully so. He doesn’t play a lick of defense and rebounding is optional, but last night he made up for this weekend’s 2-of-19 bricklaying convention with an 8-of-12 effort from the field.

Turnabout

Evan Turner’s recent run of productive games has pushed him into the top-90 producers, and last night he posted 22 points, four rebounds, four assists, and an 8-of-12 mark from the field (including two threes). I’m still officially skeptical that he can hit 43.5 percent of his threes all year, as his jumper was as broken as anybody’s for the last two years. Jason Richardson had a slow night hitting 2-of-8 shots for six points, but he managed eight rebounds and three steals to salvage the night. As long as he’s healthy he’s going to be in my lineups until further notice.

Thaddeus Young kept his foot on the gas with 20 points and seven boards, as did Jrue Holiday with 18 points, seven assists, three steals, and a block. Holiday had six turnovers, but he’ll eventually get that under control. Dorell Wright still isn’t making too much noise, in particular on offense where he had two points on 1-of-5 shooting, but the four rebounds, four assists, and one block in just 18 minutes will probably please Doug Collins. Spencer Hawes (six points, 13 minutes) is supposedly dealing with knee issues, but it feels like that’s just a nice way of saying he’s in Collins’ doghouse.

Tricky Dick

Rick Carlisle has been on a bit of a rampage lately, changing lineups and rotations frequently and last night he demoted Darren Collison so Dominique Jones (18 minutes) could start at point guard. This was clearly a motivational tactic and it worked, as Collison only had a few major mistakes to go with 12 points, three boards, six assists, and five steals. His defense has been a huge sore spot for Carlisle, which probably comes into focus when Collison isn’t performing efficiently on offense. Regardless, this would appear to be a major save by Collison but owners should be on red alert. I haven’t been nearly as high on Collison’s overall value preposition as others around here, but if you share my vision and want to float a low-ball offer this might be a good time while the dust is still in the air.

O.J. Mayo tweaked his ankle at the end of the game and that could mean he’s due for some rest, which needless to say is a bummer for a guy that has been a common thread for winning fantasy squads. Mayo had 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting with five rebounds and seven assists despite playing on the bad wheel. I’ve said it before, but I think he’s the last guy to see his touches decreased when Dirk Nowitzki returns in a few weeks. Jae Crowder was also given a surprise start, but I think it’s time we all consider him to be the two-point, four-rebound, two-assist, one-steal guy he was last night in 24 minutes. He’ll usually hit a three or two on a given night, but he’s simply a glue guy for the Mavs at this point and nothing more.

Vince Carter scored 15 points with three treys and a full stat line, and will continue to be a guy owners can turn to while he’s being relied upon so heavily by the Mavs. Elton Brand turned back the clock against his old team with 17 points, eight rebounds, one steal, and one block in 19 minutes off the bench, and that same ‘old team’ angle is enough to make me want to see it again before flinching. Shawn Marion appears to be healthy, scoring 17 points with eight rebounds, and owners can go back to using him as they normally would.

Lofty Territory

The Cavs could really use Kyrie Irving, as they are simply lost on most possessions and it’s not really an indictment of any one player as much as it is a total lack of talent. Dion Waiters dealt with a banged up left (non-shooting) hand and will have an MRI on Wednesday, but he played through it and finished with 16 points on 7-of-20 shooting, three rebounds, seven assists, two steals, and one block. He’s the only thing going for the Cavs on many possessions, but because he is already prone to forcing up shots and now he needs to – his field goal percentage is going to keep this run from being truly magnificent.

Jeremy Pargo hit just 3-of-12 shots last night, but finished with a respectable eight points, four boards, five assists, one steal, and one lone 3-point shot. Something in this ballpark should have been the expectation for owners going into this arrangement, with anything else being icing on the cake. Anderson Varejao continues to do his best Kevin Love impression without the 3-point shooting, scoring 20 points on 10-of-15 shooting with 18 rebounds, three assists, one steal, and one block. You could say his top 10-15 value is unsustainable simply because he’s operating in lofty territory, but by the current makeup of the Cavs’ roster and his ability I don’t see any falloff.

Tristan Thompson (five points, six boards, no steals or blocks) continues to underwhelm, and I don’t really see the upside for him at this point. If he was going to do things like steal, block, or make shots I think we’d have seen some signs of it by now. Also, it looks like some of my hope for Tyler Zeller (two points, two boards, 20 minutes) may have been premature, as he looked lost last night and got abused by Jermaine O’Neal. Maybe it’s a function of playing next to the Tasmanian Devil in Varejao, but he is taking an extreme back seat right now. Daniel Gibson was a late scratch due to his elbow injury, and that’s going to make him hard to trust until he can stay on the court for a few games. His return should help things in a macro sense for the Cavs.

Suns

The Suns beat up on a beat-up Cavs team last night, but one gets the feeling that things are out of control for Alvin Gentry. Even Goran Dragic has been struggling to play truly heavy minutes at just 33 per game, while his teammates are seeing much less than that lately. This doesn’t really make sense for a team that struggles with depth, and along with Marcin Gortat’s comments to a Polish media outlet it’s fair to wonder what’s going on behind closed doors.

For Gortat, his minutes are taking a hit due to Jermaine O’Neal’s solid play, and again it’s curious because Gentry could simply play both of them together for at least a little bit and hold a solid frontcourt advantage. Gortat scored six points on 3-of-7 shooting with three rebounds, two assists, one steal, and one block in 24 minutes, and based on his massive early season numbers it’s an easy call to say owners should hang tight (and that Gentry is crazy for making this an either-or proposition).

O’Neal’s knees look rejuvenated and he was the go-to guy on offense for much of the time he was on the court, even if his nine points on 4-of-9 shooting with six rebounds and two blocks in 21 minutes don’t scream ‘feed me, Seymour.’ Yes, the Suns training staff is amazing and maybe O’Neal had super secret Kobe knee fusion, but one has to think his run and Gortat’s corresponding slide are a short-term thing.

The rest of the Suns’ box was pretty predictable, with Dragic putting up a fairly normal 19 points with five boards, seven assists, two steals, one block, and three treys, Michael Beasley scoring an empty 15 points on 6-of-8 shooting with four rebounds, one steal, and one three, Markieff Morris slowing down with four points, two boards, two steals, and one block in 24 minutes, Luis Scola scoring 14 points with four boards in 24 minutes, Shannon Brown putting up nine points with a relatively full line by his standards, and Jared Dudley scoring 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting with four rebounds and one triple in 21 minutes. Each of these guys except for Dudley and Brown make a case to be owned in most 12-team formats, and we’ve discussed Dudley’s slow starts a whole bunch, but none of them outside of Dragic and Gortat are going to be reliable until Gentry stops with the ‘everybody plays’ rotation.

Blaze of Gory

The Kings are so bad. I cover them more or less like a beat writer as I work the relocation story for ProBasketballTalk.com and it’s painful to watch the owners pull the whole Major League thing because they’re broke and a mess. It manifests itself on the court as the general manager is empowered to make mind-numbing decisions with a coach that wouldn’t get away with what he is doing at any other franchise. This in turn impacts fantasy owners, who have no clue what they’re going to get out of their players on any given night.

Currently, the Kings are opting to go back to the playbook that has kept them in the basement by giving Tyreke Evans the keys at all costs. Evans, for his part, has been hot for the last three games and had another solid outing stat-wise with 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting with seven rebounds, six assists, two steals, and two blocks. This sounds great, but it comes at the expense of any sort of offensive concept, so with any good that we see there are two parts bad as Evans charges into three defenders seemingly on every other play. And when he’s not doing that, he’s either not seeing or refusing to pass to wide open teammates (even when he posts high assist totals). The net result is that the machinery simply doesn’t work. Aaron Brooks (2-of-7 FGs, seven points, four assists), DeMarcus Cousins (9-of-22 FGs, 20 points), Marcus Thornton (5-of-13 FGs, 12 points), John Salmons (2-of-5 FGs, five points, 30 minutes) and Jason Thompson (3-of-8 FGs, seven points, five boards, three blocks) are all last night’s examples of this.

Right now the shots are falling for Evans, and the Kings managed to get a win over the weekend against a Jazz team being derided by its beat writers for its lackadaisical play. That win, and a two-game sample size of good field goal shooting from the guards was enough for the Sac media and team to hail the new starting lineup as the greatest thing since Vlade Divac’s restaurant opened in Old Sac.

This means owners shouldn’t get excited over Isaiah Thomas’ relatively big night coming off the bench. Thomas scored 12 points on 4-of-6 shooting with three rebounds, three assists, and two steals in what could be best characterized as a messy sparkplug-like effort. The Kings were wallowing in their own misery for most of the third quarter with the game slipping away, and Thomas quickly asserted himself and made a few big plays throughout the second half. He’s still playing like a guy looking over his shoulder, trying to do too much when he’s on the floor because – shocker – nobody knows what the hell is going on with the Kings offense and he’s losing playing time left and right. On that note, Keith Smart has made several comments about sticking with the current lineup.

The whole situation might have been summed up best last night in a moment of hilarity for the Sac media after the game. Thomas was asked if he thought Jimmer Fredette should get more playing time.

“That’s coach’s decision. I think I should play more.” Even when it’s about Thomas, it’s about somebody else in Sacramento. One of the team’s best players from last season and their only chance at a reasonably orchestrated offense fields questions about why the other mismatched parts should be going down in a blaze of gory.

Mount Kevin Saint Love

The Wolves predictably did damage against the Kings’ weak defense, though like most teams they played down to the Kings’ level with 17 turnovers of mostly the unforced variety. Still, Luke Ridnour torched Aaron Brooks for most of the night with 18 points on 8-of-13 shooting, five assists, one steal, and one block, Kevin Love erupted with 23 points, 24 boards, two threes, two steals, and one block, Andrei Kirilenko scored 14 points with six rebounds, five assists, and three blocks, and Nikola Pekovic traded blows with DeMarcus Cousins to the tune of 16 points, eight boards, four assists, and a block.

I still think Kirilenko will be a solid fantasy player this season, but I was on the sell-high boat for the past two weeks. He’s simply not going to have the eye-popping stats he had with Love out, and if owners can use this game to sell AK’s early season production by all means do it. Kirilenko complained about back issues after the game, too, so he might not have been comfortable carrying the load that he did.

It’s possible that Pekovic plays better with Love in the lineup stretching defenses, but I need to see him do it against an opponent with a somewhat imposing interior. Right now Sacramento, Golden State, and Portland don’t qualify. Alexey Shved hit two huge threes but managed just eight points, two assists, and two steals in his 27 minutes. He and J.J. Barea (1-of-5 FGs, two points, four boards, six assists) are going to struggle to produce for standard league owners and Ricky Rubio’s return is right around the corner. I still like Shved as a long-term stash with all those injury risks, but it’s going to be hard for standard league owners to pull the trigger until at least one of the aforementioned gets hurt.

Aaron Bruski has covered hoops for Rotoworld since 2008 and has competed in national fantasy sports competitions for nearly two decades. In 2015 he was named FSWA Basketball Writer of the Year. You can also find his work over at ProBasketballTalk, where he received critical acclaim for his in-depth reporting of the Kings' relocation saga. Hit him on Twitter at Aaronbruski.Email :Aaron Bruski